For past few years, we have heard Google suggest that it is better to improve content and not remove content that is low quality. We also heard Google say removing content also works improve overall site quality. Which is it? The answer is that it is a debate and what is feasibly practical for the webmaster.

In a Google hangout from the other day, John Mueller of Google explained that while he believes and has seen case studies that removing content helps a site rank better in Google that the engineers at Google tell him and his team to tell webmasters to not remove the content but rather improve it. But John said, sometimes it is not practical for a webmaster to improve content and removing the content is a more practical strategy.

At the 1 hour 2 minute mark John said:

Here is the video embed:

Here is our previous coverage of this topic, and now it is clear why we heard so many mixed messages around handling low quality content. I suspect if you can improve the content, do that, otherwise burn it to the ground!

Google: Pruning Content Is Not Safe; Instead Make It Better
Google’s Gary Illyes: Make Thin Content Thicker OR Use NoIndex
Google: We Don’t Recommend You Remove Content To Fix Panda Issues
Google: Panda Victims Don’t Necessarily Need To Delete Old Blog Posts
Google: Pruning Content Never Should Have Worked For Panda
Google Retake: Improving Content & Pruning Content Are Both Valid Strategies

Forum discussion at Google+.